It appears another high profile mental trauma case has hit the international stage, only this time, there is a twist. The injured employee in this case is a raccoon. And he was allegedly traumatized by the female breast.
A petting zoo in Moscow is suing a video production company over the treatment it says its raccoon received during a video shoot. They rented the raccoon, named Tomas, to the company for a commercial shoot; and later came to believe it was an “erotic video”. They say that Tomas is now “traumatized.”
According to the article:
“Animals Aren’t Toys characterizes itself as a “contact zoo” and its motto is “little animals are not toys.” Reportedly, the zoo made a deal with Russian video firm called Art-Msk back in August for Tomas to be featured in a “regular advertisement.” Spokesman Viktor Kiryukhin tells the BBC that when the raccoon returned from his filmmaking adventure he was traumatized and “was attracted to women’s breasts.”
I didn’t realize being attracted to women’s breasts was a sign of major trauma. This is going to be an expensive trend if it catches on.
For its part, the video production company denies any wrongdoing. They say the animal was used in the production of an advertisement, albeit one with a naked woman in it. They insist that Tomas was not mistreated in any way, and that literally, no animals were harmed in the making of this video.
Photo source art-msk.ru
The zoo claims that “Tomas came back withdrawn, always slept in the corner, and snapped at people,” and they think “the film crew lured him onto the actress’ chest with treats. Now he thinks he can always expect a treat near women’s breasts.”
Tomas is sounding more and more like a regular dude to me, bro.
The video production company says that Tomas was not the stellar performer they had anticipated. They said that “The raccoon himself grabbed the actress’s bra and ran under the bed. Originally we asked for a trained animal, because raccoons are generally unmanageable. But we were given this – he was young and constantly ran away. After several takes he stole the underwear and chewed it.”
Ok, there are so many places I could go with that. I’d best leave it to your imagination.
So, naturally, I have a couple questions about this. What type of responsible zoo simply rents out its animals for unsupervised jobs? Perhaps they should change their motto to “little animals are props”, or “little animals are our primary revenue stream”.
And what of little Tomas? Is he covered under a Russian version of workers’ compensation? Will his injuries be considered compensable, and if so, will he receive timely psychological help? And as noted, he was a young raccoon. Did his age violate any prevailing Russian labor laws?
So many questions, and unfortunately typical for this blog, so few answers. It just goes to show that mental-mental cases can impact beings beyond our species. It is important for Tomas the raccoon to know that millions, if not billions of men around the globe share his particular condition. We’re with you, little fella. Tomas the raccoon, you are the dude, man.
